Prince Bonir Vol. 04

I headed for the town as soon as the news arrived—with any luck, our spy ship would have followed Vikings back to their base and would be returning with the information. Three days after my arrival came the news we sought: the spy ship discovered that the Vikings had built a fort on the island of Jarno north by northwest of Merseinne. It was technically a possession of Denmark, but being covered in snow and ice eight months of the year it was seen as being of little value. A small fishing village had struggled to survive on its southernmost tip since time immemorial. The Norse, it seemed, had capture the village and built a wooden fortress around it; this was now apparently their base of operations.

I traveled to confer with King Edelbert. I proposed that we launch a counterattack to dislodge the Vikings, then inform the Danes that their property had been usurped, putting the burden on them to defend their lands. Bonny agreed with my strategy, but couldn't afford to send our sparse troops on the offensive and leave the coast vulnerable to further attacks. Finally I persuaded him to send six warships and one regiment of royal guard, plus another to help guard Averic while I led my own men in the attack.

It took a week for all the parts of the invasion force to assemble, after which I led two weeks of intensive training in Averic. I would have liked more time, then the Vikings struck again. Their third attack was further north, and the local guard was not as organized as they had been in Merseinne. Most of the citizens did evacuate, but the guard took almost three hours before it launched the counteroffensive, by which time the invaders were long gone—and the town of Pike Bay was reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes. It was time to launch the counteroffensive.

------------------

I estimated that we were approximately a day-and-a-half sailing time behind the Vikings, presuming they were returning to their base. When our charts placed us within three leagues of Jarno, five ships held position and waited for nightfall, while the sixth scouted for a point where we could land undetected—with their naval skills, we stood a much better chance of defeating them on the ground than in open water.

When it was completely dark, we crept in closer. We counted on being able to make out the outline of the dragon boats against the backdrop of fires in the town, while they would not be able to see us in the dark. Fate smiled upon us, as clouds obscured the moon but steadfastly refused to rain upon us. Indeed, I personally made out at least three dragon boats, and undoubtedly there were others. I felt reasonably confident that this meant the invaders had returned straight home—if not, the fortress was much better defended than we thought, and our mission might be our last. I thought of Eve briefly, but then pushed Averic out of my mind and concentrated on the task at hand. Two ships held their position; the other four landed north of the fortress and unloaded the ground assault force. We took up our positions and waited.

At first light, the two ships in the harbor began the attack. Its archers let loose with volleys of flaming arrows, targeting the ships at anchor, especially their vulnerable masts. As anticipated, a cry of alarm rose up in the fort. The fort had two gates, one facing the water, one directly opposite.; the gates on the water side flung open and Vikings raced to man their ships. Seamen at heart, they did not think that there might be a land force waiting for them to do precisely that. In the confusion, two of our soldiers, wearing the armor captured from the Vikings killed at Meerside, slipped into the fortress.

The first Vikings had already reached their dragon boats and were preparing to chase down our vessels. We could now see that there were actually five dragon boats in the harbor, along with a score of smaller craft. Our archers had succeeded in setting two ablaze badly enough that they could not be sailed, but now they turned and headed out to sea, needing all the head start they could get to stay away from the superior Viking boats. In the meantime, I remained hidden with my Averic guards and a second company of the King's archers, lying in wait. The first dragon boat had raised the anchor and was giving chase; the other two were filling quickly, and scores of men rushed out of the fortress, across the shallow water and towards their boats. Scanning the scene, I saw a Viking holding a sword over his head with both hands—the signal that our spies had done their job.

"Now!" I commanded.

At once our entire unit sprang forth from our cover. The archers concentrated on picking off men who were in the water, as the water slowed their movements and made them easy targets. I led the ground troops in a charge towards the fortress. As intended, confusion set in. Some Vikings continued to rush towards the boats; some headed up the beach to engage us; others turned back towards the fortress to assume a defensive position. Without a cohesive, organized effort, none of their actions had much effect.

My men's objective was to gain the fortress; they were instructed to sprint for the gate, avoiding engagement as much as possible until we were inside the walls. A booming voice was heard yelling over the din; one of their leaders recognized our objective and sought to organize the defense. With clear orders now, the Vikings on the beach rushed to retreat into the fortress. Some of the Vikings in the ships, however, returned to the water in response to the order, where the archers continued to decimate them. The Vikings only ever managed to launch one ship.

When we were within a few hundred yards, the order was given to close the gate. The gates started to swing closed, but then stopped—our spies had wedged materials into the hinges, making it impossible to close them. Vikings streamed back into the fort, with us in hot pursuit. Suddenly realizing the problem, the men at the gates attempted to reopen them in order to remove the blockages. Their progress was hindered by masses of Vikings, expecting the gates to be closing, pressing in behind them and not giving them room to open. They were still trying to tell their own men to back away from the gate when we reached the gate and poured through.

This now was the hardest part of the battle—we had fought our way into the fortress, and now we faced angry Vikings wanting to drive us back. The problem with most forts, however, is that their defenses are all designed to combat an enemy outside the wall; they were useless for an enemy on the inside. Second, the Vikings were used to attacking; they were much less used to defending, and their usual tactics were not very effective. Third, what we did once inside the fort caught them by surprise, as most military men would have thought it suicide—we advanced as rapidly as possible to the far side of the fortress, essentially allowing ourselves to be surrounded. Really, we had little choice; while the Vikings coming up from the water behind us were taking heavy casualties, they nevertheless would have surrounded us anyway. Our objective was to open the other gate.

As I had hoped, because virtually all of the Vikings had gone out the water-side gate, the only thing standing between us and the land-side gate were women and children—and they wisely got out of our way. In short order we swarmed the battlements and took control of the land-side gate mechanism. We opened the gate—and the rest of the King's troops, who had been hiding outside, now rose up, rapidly closing the distance to the fort and swarming through the opening. With some Vikings still in boats and others dead or incapacitated on the beach, our combined forces now outnumbered them. And as our forces streamed through the land gate, all semblance of order among the defenders crumbled. Some Vikings fought but were easily subdued by our superior numbers. Some turned and fled, seeking to escape or perhaps protect their own families. Many made a dash for boats—only to find themselves in a cross-fire of arrows. The rout was on.

"Remember Barwick!" yelled soldiers, mostly of the King's army. "Vengeance for Barwick." Unfortunately, even the best-trained soldiers can go partly mad when a hated enemy is crumbling at his feet. Soldiers started to ransack the town, raping, killing, searching for loot. I was able to retain order among my own Averic guard, but until the madness subsided I was fighting a losing battle trying to reign in the King's men. As a result, they did all the work of clearing out the town—running into the last pockets of resistance along the way. Viking casualties outnumbered ours eight to one; most of ours came from the ranks of the King's men as they rambled through the city more like an angry mob than an army.

I walked through the town, already starting to restore order. If I saw men raping one of the women, I simply said "We're going to be here for a while. It's going to be rather hard to look her in the face after this, will it not?" Most were either too excited to hear or my words simply befuddled them; only a few regained their faculties at my prodding and ceased their actions.

Behind me, I heard a female voice saying "Let me go, let me go I tell you." I turned and saw two soldiers dragging a beautiful woman out of a house. I was confused by her flawless speech, since the others all spoke languages we could not understand. She also had dark hair, which told me she wasn't a Scandinavian. Suddenly it clicked.

"Is your name Thera, perchance?" I asked.

-----------------

It was late in the day before order had been fully restored. Our two ships had by then returned and their men were helping hold the fort. Their pursuers, seeing Norway's standard fall over the fort, had apparently fled towards the motherland—which is actually what I had wanted. I had men taking stock of available supplies and setting up a system for distribution—it would be a month before the Vikings returned, I reckoned, so I had to make sure the fortress could survive as an occupied territory for at least twice that long.

Thera, once she was past her initial shock that I would know her name, had proven valuable as an interpreter—she wasn't completely fluent, but she had learned much in the months she had been a captive slave here, and further she knew who most of the survivors were and what their role in the community had been. I relayed Juriel's tale; although mentally she knew that there was little chance anyone she had known had survived the attack, one continues to hope against hope until such hopes are dashed, and I had unenviable task of dashing them. I offered her the chance to return to the mainland with the boat I was sending back with the injured (of both sides), the young girls taken from Barwick and some of the other Viking slaves, but she refused. "I have nothing to go back to," she explained solemnly, "here at least maybe I can be useful."

The soldiers were preparing our first communal dinner as occupiers and occupied. I had assigned any soldiers I knew had taken part in any raping and pillaging to serving the townspeople dinner; having to look into the ravaged faces of women they had violated, most now deeply regretted their actions. Others were still sweeping through the last few houses in the town. Suddenly, a soldier ran up to me. "My Lord," he panted breathlessly, "there is a situation at the edge of town that requires your personal attention—at once."

I hastily followed him to one of the corners of the fortress. The first thing I saw as I approached were three soldiers with bleeding cuts heading towards the infirmary. Then I saw a ring of soldiers cornering something or someone by the fortress wall. Finally I heard a shrill voice, shouting things I did not understand, followed by a heavily accented "Stay back! Or I'll slice you all!"

The officer in charge met me beyond the circle. "I'm sorry to bother you, My Lord," he said, "but we encountered some...unexpected...resistance. In light of your previous orders, sir, I wanted you to decide how you wanted the situation handled."

"Stay away! You won't take me!" came the same high-pitched, accented voice. I walked into the perimeter formed by my soldiers and came face-to-face with its source. A woman stood against the wall, holding a massive two-handed sword in classic defensive position. I thought of the injured men I had seen retreating and saw the dull sheen of a well-cared blade, and had no doubt that she knew how to use it.

"I say," I asked her calmly, "do you mean to attack us?"

"Attack you?" she responded indignantly, "it is you that have attacked us."

"Perhaps, but that is now history," I replied, "so I ask again, do you wield your weapon in self-defense, or do you mean to attack us?"

"You shall see how well I can defend myself against a lot of dogs like you!" she snarled.

"Ah, well then," I replied, bending my knees deeply and resting upon my own legs as foot soldiers were trained to do. "If you do not mean to attack us, then we can return to our duties." I shooed the troops away, to continue doing what they were doing before—for one thing, it was not impossible that this was merely a diversion, but mostly I was forming an idea of how to best handle the situation. The King's soldiers thought I was crazy, but I gave a knowing wink to some of my own Averic guards. They knew by now that I always had a plan, so they sheathed their swords and went back to what they had been doing. The King's men shrugged and followed their lead.

I crouched perpendicular to where she stood, avoiding direct eye contact for now but watching closely in my peripheral vision. I pretended to be absent-mindedly playing with the dirt. Sending the circle of guards away was the last thing she had expected, and as a result she was unsure what her next step should be. "I see...you wish to keep me for yourself, do you? Well go ahead, just try and come get me."

"Get you?" I asked, turning now to look at her, feigning thickness "but I already know where you are." It was the first time I had gotten a good look at her. She had long yellow hair braided in a single thick rope down her back. She wore a steel breastplate, but it was unlike any breastplate I had ever seen—it had been carefully hammered to provide a three-dimensional relief, presumably, of the torso underneath. The breastplate did not extend upwards beyond the breasts, and the tops of two mounds peered over the top, heaving up and down. Two leather-lined metal straps over the shoulders helped keep it all in place. She wore soft deerskin pants that were tailored such that they fit her like a second skin, and fur-lined boots against the cold of the ground.

"Very funny," she sneered, "you think I will let down my guard and then you will try to jump me. Don't think I don't know what you men do—you invade a village, and once you've killed the men, you take every woman in the town as your personal playthings. Then when you have finished with them, you run them through and leave them to die. Well, you won't be taking me that easy!"

I looked the other way and, fortunately, there was another of the village women visible. Standing to face her, I answered, "That may be what your people did at Barwick," I snarled gesturing in the direction of the woman behind me, "but that is not what we do." I paused for a second, then stood up, giving her a polite half-bow. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Prince Bonir, Duke of Averic. And in case you haven't heard, we do things differently in Averic."

She watched for a moment the woman go about the business of fetching a pail of water, unmolested by soldiers, and finally stood down from her defensive posture. "These are not my people," she muttered.

"No?" I asked, "and yet you live here? If these are not your people, then who are you?"

The woman sighed and returned her own weapon to the large sheath on her back, but came no closer. "Yes, I lived here, because my despicable husband dragged me here. I suppose I should thank you for that...releasing me from my bondage to Hagnar."

"Not a marriage of love, I presume?" I asked.

"No," she spat sourly, "look at me." She held her arms out at her sides, showing off her armor as well as muscles well-conditioned from handling a blade. "I was born to be a warrior, trained to be a warrior. My name is Sigrid, and I am a Swede, not a Norwegian. But my father was a chieftain, and for some reason he wanted peace with the Norwegians rather than beating them into submission. Needing to cement the deal, he arranged for his only daughter to marry the son of one of their clan leaders. That's how I ended up in this hell."

I said nothing, expecting more to follow.

"You may say you do things differently in Averic, Prince Bonir, but this is not Averic, and you are still a man—and men are not to be trusted," she seethed. "I was a warrior, but my husband made me act like these common women. He never let me oil my blade, train, anything. He demanded his dinner when he came home, then he would throw me on the bed and take what he thought rightfully his before heading off again to drink with his crewmates. The only difference between me and girls in the villages they sacked is that he didn't run me through afterwards—but that was only so that he could do it again the next day." I remained silent in the face of her anger. "I could have killed him a thousand times, but that would have started a war with my people, and my father had worked so hard to make peace. For four years I have swallowed my pride and been the good wife, all the while bringing my sword and armor out of hiding every time he left on a voyage. Now I won't need to hide anymore."

"You speak my language well," I noted.

"Yes, I speak five languages, and you know what...I can write! Are you surprised? A woman that can write!" she burst out sarcastically. "A warrior needs to be trained in mind and body. I went to school from the time I was three until my marriage was arranged..." She paused, then started walking. "So thank you for killing Hagnar for me, since I could not. At long last, I am free." She walked in front of me slowly, as if expecting that I would stop her. Several steps past me, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. "You're not going to try to stop me?"

"No," I replied wearily, "although I wonder where it is that you plan to go."

"I'm headed out to the wilderness to fend for myself—like a warrior should." She turned back forward and headed toward the gate. I called a nearby boy over and asked that he sneak behind her and see if she did actually leave the fort. Fifteen minutes later he returned, announcing she had. I gave the boy a coin and headed back to the town hall. I wondered briefly what would become of her, but soon other problems that required my attention washed her from my mind.

-------------------

Three days passed. Early the next morning two girls came running in from the land-side gate yelling and screaming for help. By the time they were calmed enough to be coherent and their words interpreted, we learned their brother had been attacked by a bear. Quickly if belatedly, I grabbed a contingent of guards and followed out into the wild.

The boy lay in tall grass a mere 500 yards from the gate. He had deep slash wounds across his chest that bled profusely. I thought at first he might be dead, but when he stirred as we reached him, I realized he was wisely playing dead lest the bear return.

A large cloth was laid out and the boy was laid in it. Four soldiers then picked up the corners of the cloth and began carrying him back to the fort for medical attention. That's when we heard it—a shrill scream, followed by a bellowing roar. The bear must still be nearby, and further someone else was in danger.

"You, take the girls and get this boy back to the fort, then close the gates as a precaution. The rest of you," I ordered, drawing my soldiers, "look for the source of that scream, and yell when you find it!" I pointed them each in a general direction, then took the middle route myself, as we fanned out in search of the deadly bear.